Life on the Outer Coast

July 3rd

The fleet departed Auke Bay harbor at 8am under sunny skies for Swanson Harbor. Between the harbor and Shelter Island saw Surf scoters, White winged scoters, Harlequin, 6 Great Blue herons, Pigeon Guillemots, 3 eagles and 1 Humpback whale and well as lots of Marbled murrelets.
South of Point Retreat encountered a pod of 12 orcas a reasonable distance away. Fortunately for us they were traveling in our direction. Not sure if it was related to our presence or not, but one Orca was spy hopping as we closed the distance. There was one very small one in the pod. At the closest view, it was rather pink instead of white like the older ones. Apparently the relative newborns are rather pink.
Checked the dorsal fins against a photo book of local Orcas in Bartlett cove and matched a few dorsal fins to confirm that it was a resident pod. Unfortunately, I didn’t make note of the identity of the individuals.

Closer to Couverdon we were treated to a impressive sight. A group of 6 or 7 humpback whales bubble feeding. Not just once, but about 10 times. They swam short distances between bubble sessions, in one spot they fed about 3 times before moving on.
One whale didn’t participate, but stayed a short distance off while the rest bubble fed.

We tore ourselves away from the whales and proceeded to Swanson Harbor. I could see roses amongst the thimbleberries on the way into the cove and had my boots on by the time we were tied up at the public float. This became my regular behavior pattern on the trip. Once close to land, I was ready to explore.
There were 5 or 6 oystercatchers on the beach near the float.

I started out on my own for a beach walk along the shore and was joined a bit later by the most of the rest of the folks. Being on my own gave me time to check out the roses, and to bushwack my way through the very thick Thimbleberries into the forest without dragging people along for the trip. The roses are Nootkas (few thorns, large flowers). There was only one rather large and upright Crabapple (Malus fusca) among the thimbleberries. The path into the forest had Black currant (Ribes lacustre) and Baneberry.
An unusually large uplifted beach step (about 6 to 8 ft) was between the beach area and the forest. The shore isn’t wave cut, so I’m attributing the large step to rebound.
In the forest (Hemlock and Sitka Spruce, Blueberry, Menziesia, Goodyera oblongifolia, and Corallorhiza mertensiana.

I joined the rest of the group for the meadow walk. Lots of blooming herbs in the upper part of the beach, Angelica genuflexa, Castilleja unalaschensis, C. miniata, Ranunculus orthorhynchus (red achenes and yellow petals with reddish tinge on the outer surface). Heracleum maximum, Achellea millefolium, Geranium erianthum, Equisetum arvense, Dodecatheon pulchelllum. The grasses were blooming as well (quickly ate a Claritin).

Identifying the Ranunculus gave me a bit of a hard time.
I had a vague memory of a species with red on the outer petals, but couldn't for the life of me remember which species it was. I kind of wanted for the mystery Ranunculus to be pacificus, a species that I don't believe I've seen before. The mystery buttercup fits orthorhynchus a bit better though.

Walked down the beach and back through the woods. Moose pellets was not unusual in the woods, most of it looked old. We did find some newer scat in a fern dominated meadow that we found. I had avoided the spot earlier because I thought the opening was blow down, but was intrigued by the light in the opening and had to check it out. The opening had some of the largest Skunk cabbage I've seen in awhile at the edge. The opening turned out to be a Lady fern dominated meadow. There was also Iris setosa, Platathera dilatata, and Caltha palustris.